An India-based Church group under the Patriarch of Antioch, the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church, faces the threat of a split after the patriarch suspended one of its archbishops for alleged disobedience. Christians in the Church’s archdiocese based in Kottayam district in southern Kerala state are divided after Patriarch of Antioch Ignatius Aprem-II suspended their Archbishop Severios Kuriakose, accused of defying the orders of the patriarch. The suspension order of May 17 has divided around 50,000 Christians of the Malankara Syrian Knanaya Archdiocese at Chingavanam in Kottayam district, according to T. O. Abraham, the archdiocesan Knanaya Association secretary. At a May 21 emergency meeting, the archdiocesan members declared the suspension of their Metro-politan illegal.
“The Patriarch has only spiritual powers and no power to deal with temporal matters, including dismissing our Metropolitan,” said Abraham, secretary of the supreme body that manages the archdiocese’s temporal matters. Some Church leaders told that Kuriakose’s consent to convene a special session of the Knanaya Association to amend their constitution, allegedly to curtail the patriarch’s powers, provoked the suspension.